'Scotland has much to be proud of in the way that the pandemic has been managed. I have no doubt that the death toll would have been greater without the unwavering support and close working relationship between the government and the clinical community.' Dr Dr Stephen Cole, President of the Scottish Intensive Care Society Contributor reminders and comments talkingupreminders@gmail.com

‘On the last hill that shows you all the valley?’

As I reflected on the above graph from the very useful Scotland Coronavirus Tracker, the words of a song came into my head. Written in the 70s by Pete Atkin and Clive James, ‘The Last Hill That Shows You All the Valley‘ isn’t on re-reading that optimistic but I’d re-thought its title to suggest the optimism that we will surely see a downward slope soon, in coronavirus cases and deaths, as we enter a sunlit plain where the virus is contained and the vaccine is on the way.

I find that graph encouraging, The number of patients sick enough to be hospitalised has been falling slowly for a week now and the number really sick has been doing the same.

Remember these graph bars are not new cases every day like the graphs for new cases and new deaths, below. Some of these same patients have been there for weeks. The number of new cases admitted each day to ICU is not reported but the overall number has been falling for some days now suggesting that there are only a few really serious new cases coming in each day.

I appreciate that there are many elderly patients in care homes dying before they can be transferred to hospitals.

Also encouraging, the number of new infections with symptoms serious enough to be reported is beginning to fall after at least two weeks since the last major increase. Social distancing has worked.

Deaths too show some sign of flattening out over the last week though, of course, they are still tragically numerous.

It’s to be expected that deaths will only begin to fall after the number of new cases has been falling for some time.

2 thoughts on “‘On the last hill that shows you all the valley?’”

It would be very surprising if social distancing measures did not have any effect. However, it is not clear – at this stage – if the draconian measures adopted by Scotland / UK will prove more effective than those adopted by, for example, Sweden. The impact on health and wellbeing of the population as a whole of extended and/or repeated lockdowns until such time as a vaccine becomes available should be taken into consideration. To say nothing of the catastrophic impact on the economy and the huge burden of debt that we will bequeath to future generations.

Robert, you write: “.. the huge burden of debt that we will bequeath to future generations” and then leave this statement unqualified as if it was a self-evident ‘truth’.

It is not: at the very least, there is a wide ranging, technically expert debate on whether or not what you have written is indeed the reality. I am no economist and I struggle to understand the twists and turns in the debate but I now know enough not to accept this ‘passing on debt to future generations’ claim without question.

As you may know, there is a very substantial international literature now around the topic, not all of it accessible to a non-expert like myself. This is from one of the more accessible sources:

“… what is called the national debt is not, as it is popularly described, ‘a burden in future generations’, but is instead the absolutely essential money supply that lets an economy function.”

'Scotland has much to be proud of in the way that the pandemic has been managed. I have no doubt that the death toll would have been greater without the unwavering support and close working relationship between the government and the clinical community.' Dr Dr Stephen Cole, President of the Scottish Intensive Care Society Contributor reminders and comments talkingupreminders@gmail.com

'Scotland has much to be proud of in the way that the pandemic has been managed. I have no doubt that the death toll would have been greater without the unwavering support and close working relationship between the government and the clinical community.' Dr Dr Stephen Cole, President of the Scottish Intensive Care Society Contributor reminders and comments talkingupreminders@gmail.com

'Scotland has much to be proud of in the way that the pandemic has been managed. I have no doubt that the death toll would have been greater without the unwavering support and close working relationship between the government and the clinical community.' Dr Dr Stephen Cole, President of the Scottish Intensive Care Society Contributor reminders and comments talkingupreminders@gmail.com

'Scotland has much to be proud of in the way that the pandemic has been managed. I have no doubt that the death toll would have been greater without the unwavering support and close working relationship between the government and the clinical community.' Dr Dr Stephen Cole, President of the Scottish Intensive Care Society Contributor reminders and comments talkingupreminders@gmail.com